An improvised tete-a-tete may probably prove effective with this gentle, candid and tender spirit. Pius VII., who had never known ill-will, might be won by kindly treatment, by an air of filial respect, by caresses; he may feel the personal ascendency of Napoleon, the prestige of his presence and conversation, the invasion of his genius. Inexhaustible in arguments, matchless in the adaptation of ideas to circumstances, the most amiable and most imperious of interlocutors, stentorian and mild, tragic and comic by turns, the most eloquent of sophists and the most irresistible of fascinators, as soon as he meets a man face to face, he wins him, conquers him, and obtains the mastery.[51117] In effect, after seeing the Pope for six days, Napoleon obtains by persuasion what he could not obtain afar by constraint. Pius VII. signs the new Concordat in good faith, himself unaware that, on regaining his freedom and surrounded by his cardinals, who inform him on the political situation, he will emerge from his bewilderment, be attacked by his conscience, and, through his office, publicly accuse himself, humbly repent, and in two months withdraw his signature.

Such, after 1812 and 1813, is the duration of Napoleon's triumphs and the ephemeral result of his greatest military and ecclesiastical achievements—Moskow, Lutzen, Bautzen and Dresden, the Council of 1811 and the Concordat of 1813. Whatever the vastness of his genius may be, however strong his will, however successful his attacks, his success against nations and churches never is, and never can be, other than temporary. Great historical and moral forces elude his grasp. In vain does he strike, for their downfall gives them new life, and they rise beneath the blow. With Catholic institutions,[51118] as with other powers, not only do his efforts remain sterile, but what he accomplishes remains inverse to the end he has in view. He aims to subjugate the Pope, and he led the Pope on to omnipotence He aims at the maintenance and strength of the Gallican spirit among the French clergy, and yet brings them under the rule of the ultramontane spirit.[51119] With extraordinary energy and tenacity, with all his power, which was enormous, through the systematic and constant application of diverse and extreme measures, he labored for fifteen years to rend the ties of the Catholic hierarchy, take it to pieces, and, in sum, the final result of all is to tie them faster and hasten its completion.

*****

[Footnote 5101: Se preface to "The Modern Regime," Vol. I.]

[Footnote 5102: On some of the ideas above indicated see "The Modern Regime," Vol. I. p.120.]

[Footnote 5103: An allusion to Malthusianism, practiced by many heads of families in France. M. Taine would probably have shown this practice contrary to national welfare.—Tr.]

[Footnote 5104: Idolizing of children. (SR.)]

[Footnote 5105: Cf. "Les carnets de voyage."]

[Footnote 5106: On this idea see Volume I of "The Modern Regime," page 332, to the end of the chapter. (Ed. Laff. II. pp. 592 to 605).]

[Footnote 5107: Today this would probably be the media especially television.]

[Footnote 5108: Memorial, IV.,259 (June 7 and 8, 1816); V., 323 (Aug. 17, 1816).]

[Footnote 5109: Thibaudeau, p. 152 (Prairial 21, year X.]

[Footnote 5110: Idem, IV.,259, (June 7 and 8, 1816).—Pelet de la Lozere, "Opinions de Napoleon au conseil d'etat," p 223, (March 4, 1806).]

[Footnote 5111: "Discours, rapports et travaux sur le Concordat de 1801," by Portalis (published by Frederick Portalis), p.10.—In his speech on the organization of cults (Germinal 15, year X), Portalis, although a good Catholic, adopts the same idea, because he is a legist and one of the ancient Regime. "Religions, even false, have this advantage, that they are an obstacle to the introduction of arbitrary doctrines. Individuals have a center of faith; governments have no fear of dogmas once known and which do not change. Superstition, so to say, is regulated, circumscribed and kept within bounds which it cannot, or dare not, go outside of."]

[Footnote 5112: Thibaudeau, p. 151 (Prairial 21, year X). "The First Consul combated at length the different systems of the philosophy on cults, natural religions, deism, etc. All that according to him, was mere ideology."]

[Footnote 5113: Pelet de la Lozere, p. 208 (May 22, 1804).]

[Footnote 5114: Thibaudeau, p. 152 (Prairial 21, year X).]

[Footnote 5115: Pelet de la Lozere, p, 223 (March 4, 1806).]

[Footnote 5116: Roederer, "Oevres completes," III., 334 (Aug. 18, 1800).]

[Footnote 5117: What impression could this have made on Lenin? Could he not have felt: "Perhaps Napoleon's logic was good at that time but now with electricity, the steam engine and modern industrialism it will be possible to do without the efficiency of capitalism and hence with its inequalities and egoism? If so then we can recreate the equality dreamt of by Babeuf, Robespierre, Saint Just and the other ancient revolutionaries!!"]

[Footnote 5118: Ref.: "Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will either be extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, and despotism will come from either of these excesses." Aristotle. (SR.)]

[Footnote 5119: Pelet de la Lozere, p. 205 (February 11, 1804).]

[Footnote 5120: Ibid., p. 201.]

[Footnote 5121: Pelet de la Lozere, p. 206, (Feb. 11, 1804).]

[Footnote 5122: Memorial, V., 323 (Aug. 17, 1816).]

[Footnote 5123: Pelet de la Lozere, p 201.]

[Footnote 5124: Memorial, V., 353 (Aug. 17, 1816). Notes on "Les Quatre Concordants," by M. de Pradt (Correspondence of Napoleon I., xxx., p.557).]

[Footnote 5125: Bourrienne, "Memoires," V., 232.]

[Footnote 5126: Notes on "Les Quatre Concordats," by M. de Pradt (Correspondence of Napoleon I., XXX., 638 and 639).]

[Footnote 5127: Thibaudeau, p. 152 (Prairial 21, year X).]

[Footnote 5128: Notes on "Les Quatre Concordats," by M. de Pradt (correspondence, XXX., 638).]

[Footnote 5129: Count Boulay de La Meurthe, "Negotiations du concordat." (Extract from the correspondant, "1882, on the religious state of France in November, 1800, and particularly on, the condition of the constitutional church, the latter being very poor, disunited, with no credit and no future.) The writer estimates the number of active priests at 8000, of which 2000 are constitutionnels and 6000 orthodox."]

[Footnote 5130: Thibaudeau, p.152.]

[Footnote 5131: Thibaudeau, p. 154 (words of the First consul) "What makes the government liked is its respect for worship.... The priests must be connected with the government."]

[Footnote 5132: Ibid., p.154: "Is it not better to organize worship and discipline the priests rather than let things go on as they are?"]

[Footnote 5133: La Fayette, "Memoires, II.", 200. ("Mes rapports avec le Premier consul.")]

[Footnote 5134: D'Haussonville, "l'Eglise romaine et la Premier Empire," II.. 78 and 101. Napoleon's letters to Cardinal Fesch, Jan. 7, 1806; to the Pope, Feb.22, 1806 and to cardinal Fesch, of the same date. "His Holiness will have the same consideration for me in temporal matters as I have for him in spiritual matters.... My enemies will be his enemies."—"Tell people (in Rome) that I am Charlemagne, the sword of the church, their emperor; that I must be treated the same; that they should not know that there was a Russian empire.... If the Pope does not accept my conditions, I shall reduce him to the condition he was in before Charlemagne."]

[Footnote 5135: Decree, May 17, 1809. "Whereas, when Charlemagne, emperor of the French, and out august predecessor, donated several counties to the bishops of Rome, he gave them only under the title of fiefs and for the welfare of his own states, and as by the said donation Rome did not thereby cease to form part of his empire,... the states of the Pope are now reunited to the French empire."]

[Footnote 5136: Senatus-consulte, Feb. 17, 1810, title II., article XII. "Any foreign sovereignty is incompatible with the exercise of any spiritual sovereignty within the empire."]

[Footnote 5137: D'Haussonville, ibid., IV.,344. (Decree of the National Council, Aug. 5, 1811.—Concordat of Fontainebleau, Jan. 25, 1813, article 14.—Decree on the execution of this Concordat, March 23, 1813, art. 4.)]

[Footnote 5138: Senatus-consulte, Feb.17, 1810, articles 13 and 14.]

[Footnote 5139: Memorial, Aug.17, 1816.]

[Footnote 5140: Senatus-consulte, Feb.17, 1810.]

[Footnote 5141: Notes by Napoleon on the "Les Quatre Concordats de M. de Pradt" (correspondence, XXX., 550). Lanfrey, "Histoire de Napoleon," V., 214. (Along with the Vatican archives, there were brought to Paris the tiara and other insignia or ornaments of Pontifical dignity.)]

[Footnote 5142: Senatus-consulte, Feb. 17, 1810.]

[Footnote 5143: Notes by Napoleon on "Les Quatre Concordats" (Correspondence, XXX., 548).]

[Footnote 5144: Cf. Roman laws on the Collegia illicita, the first source of which is the Roman conception of religion, the political and practical use of augurs, auspices and sacred fowls.—It is interesting to trace the long life and survivorship of this important idea from antiquity down to the present day; it reappears in the Concordat and in the Organic Articles of 1801, and still later in the late decrees dissolving unauthorized communities and closing the convents of men.— French jurists, and in particular Napoleon's jurists, are profoundly imbued with the Roman idea. Portalis, in his exposition of the motives for establishing metropolitan seminaries (March 14, 1804), supports the decree with Roman law. "The Roman laws," he says, "place every thing concerning the cult in the class of matters which belong essentially to public rights."]

[Footnote 5145: Thibaudeau, p.152.]

[Footnote 5146: "Discours, rapports et travaux sur le Concordat de 1801," by Portalis, p.87 (on the Organic Articles), p.29 (on the organization of cults). "The ministers of religion must not pretend to share in or limit public power.... Religious affairs have always been classed by the different national codes among matters belonging to the upper police department of the State... The political magistrate may and should intervene in everything which concerns the outward administration of sacred matters.... In France, the government has always presided, in a more or less direct way, over the direction of ecclesiastical affairs."]

[Footnote 5147: "Discours, rapports, etc.," by Portalis, p. 31.—Ibid., p.143: "To sum up: The Church possesses only a purely spiritual authority; the sovereigns, in their capacity of political magistrates, regulate temporal and mixed questions with entire independence, and, as protectors, they have even the right to see to the execution of canons and to repress, even in spiritual matters, the infractions of pontiffs."]

[Footnote 5148: Articles Organiques. 1st. Catholic cult, articles 3, 4, 23, 24, 35, 39, 44, 62. 2nd. Protestant cults, articles 4, 5, 11, 14, 22, 26, 30, 31, 32, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43.—Israelite cult, decree of March 17, 1808, articles 4, 8, 9, 16, 23. Decree of execution, samedate, articles 2 to 7.]

[Footnote 5149: Decree of March 17, 1808, articles 12, 21.]

[Footnote 5150: Articles Organiques (Protestant cults), 12 and 13.]

[Footnote 5151: Articles Organiques (Catholic cult), 24. Teachers selected for the seminaries "will subscribe the declaration made by the clergy of France in 1682; they will submit to teaching the doctrine therein set forth."]

[Footnote 5152: "Dsicours, rapports, etc," by Portalis, p. 101.]

[Footnote 5153: Ibid, p. 378.]

[Footnote 5154: Abbe Sicard, "Les Dispensateurs des benefices ecclesiastiques" (in the "Correspondant," Sep.10, 1889, p.883). A benefice was then a sort of patrimony which the titulary, old or ill, often handed over to one of his relatives. "A canonist of the eighteenth century says that the resignation carried with it one third of the income."]

[Footnote 5155: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol. I. p. 415.: "The nomination of Cardinal Maury as arch-bishop of Paris was published on the same day that I had been appointed prefect of police. The new arch-bishop had made too much noise in the past for him not to have become known to me. He was as happy with his appointment as I was unhappy with mine. I met him in the chateau Fontainebleau and I have ever since been haunted by the noisy expression of his happiness. He constantly repeated this sentence: "The Emperor has just satisfied the two greatest requirements of his capital. With a good police and a good clergy he can always be sure of public order, since an arch-bishop is also a prefect of the police."]

[Footnote 5156: Report of Simeon to the tribunat on presenting to it the Concordat and Organic Articles, Germinal 17, year X.—Henceforth "the ministers of all cults will be subject to the influence of the government which appoints or confirms them, to which they are bound by the most sacred promises, and which holds them in its dependence by their salaries."]

[Footnote 5157: "Discours, rapports, etc.," by Portalis, p. 40.—Emile Ollivier, "Nouveau manuel de droit ecclesiastique," P.193. (Reply by Portalis to the protests of the Holy See, Sep. 22, 1803.) Before 1789 Portalis writes: "The spectacle presented by the monks was not very edifying.. .. The legislature having decided that religious vows could not be taken up to twenty-one years of age,... this measure keeps novices away; the monastic orders, sapped by the state of morals and by time, could obtain no recruits; they languished in a state of inertia and of disfavor which was worse than annihilation.... The era for monastic institutions had passed."]

[Footnote 5158: Pelet de la Lozere, p.146. (Words of Napoleon, March 11, 1806.)]

[Footnote 5159: Pelet de la Lozere, p.207 (May 22, 1804).]

[Footnote 5160: Decree of Messidor 3, year XII (June 22, 1804).—Letter of Napoleon to the King of Naples, April 14, 1807, on the suppression of convents at Naples: "You know that I don't like monks, as I have uprooted them everywhere." To his sister Elisa, May 17, 1806: "Keep on and suppress the convents."]

[Footnote 5161: "Etat des congregations, communantes et associations religieuses," drawn up in execution of article 12 of the law of Dec. 12, 1876 (Imprimerie nationale, 1878): 1st. congregations of women with a general superior, nurses and teachers, authorized from Prairial 28, year XI, to January 13, 1813, total, 42; 2nd. communities of women without a general superior, nurses and teachers, authorized from April 9, 1806, to Sept. 28, 1813, total, 205.]

[Footnote 5162: Ibid., Brethren of the Christian Schools, namely, of Saint Yon, authorized March 17, 1808.]

[Footnote 5163: Ibid., congregation of the Mission of Saint-Lazare, authorized Prairial 17, year XI.—Congregation of the Seminary of Foreign Missions, authorized Germinal 2, year XIII.]

[Footnote 5164: Pelet de la Lozere, p.208 (May 22, 1804).]

[Footnote 5165: Pelet de la Lozere, P.209]

[Footnote 5166: Decree of March 17, 1808, article 109.]

[Footnote 5167: Alexis Chevalier, "Les Freres des ecoles chretiennes apres la Revolution," p. 93. (Report by Portalis approved by the First consul, Frimaire to, year XII.) "Henceforth," says Portalis, "the superior-general at Rome abandons all inspection of the Christian Brothers. In France, it is understood that the Brothers will have a superior general resident at Lyons."]

[Footnote 5168: D'Haussonville, V., p. 148.]

[Footnote 5169: Fortress in the Italian Alps. (SR.)]

[Footnote 5170: D'Haussonville, V., p. 148. Letter of Napoleon to the Minister of Worship, March 3, 1811 (omitted in the published correspondence).]

[Footnote 5171: Ibid., IV.,p.133. (Letter by Napoleon, Sep. 2, 1809, omitted in the "Correspondence.")]

[Footnote 5172: Concordat, articles 4, 5, 16.]

[Footnote 5173: Articles Organiques, I., pp. 2, 6.]

[Footnote 5174: Code penal, decree of Feb. 16-20, 1810, article 207.]

[Footnote 5175: Napoleon's own expressions: "I may regard myself as the head of the Catholic ministry, since the Pope has crowned me." (Pelet de la Lozere, p. 210, July 17, 1806.)—Note the word crowned (sacre). Napoleon, as well as former kings, considers himself as clothed with ecclesiastical dignity.]

[Footnote 5176: On the sense and bearing of Gallican maxims cf. the whole of the answer by Portalis to Cardinal Caprara. (Emile Ollivier, "Nouveau manuel de droit ecclesiastique," p.150.)]

[Footnote 5177: Decree of Feb.25, 1810. (The edict of Louis XIV. is attached to it.) Prohibition to teach or write "anything opposed to the doctrine contained" in the declaration of the French clergy. "Every professor of theology must sign and submit to teaching the doctrine therein set forth."—In establishments where there are several professors "one of them will be annually directed to teach the said doctrine."—In colleges where there is but one professor "he will be obliged to teach it one of three consecutive years."—The professors are required to hand in to the competent authority "their minutes dictated to the pupils."—None of them can be "licensed, whether in theology or in canon law, nor graduated as doctor, without having maintained the said doctrine in one of his theses."]

[Footnote 5178: Cf., for details, d'Haussonville, I., p.200 et seq.]

[Footnote 5179: Pelet de la Lozere, p. 205. (Words of Napoleon, Feb. 4, 1804.)]

[Footnote 5180: A procedure used by Stalin and copied by all his satellite states. (SR.)]

[Footnote 5181: Thibaudeau, p.157 (Messidor 2, year X).]

[Footnote 5182: Roederer, III., pp. 535, 567.]

[Footnote 5183: Pelet de la Lozere, p.203. (Napoleon's words, Feb. 4, 1804.)—Law of March 14, 1804.]

[Footnote 5184: Cf. "Letters of Mgr. Claude Simon, bishop of Grenoble, April 18, 1809, and October 6, 1811."]

[Footnote 5185: Articles Organiques, p.68.]

[Footnote 5186: Bercastel and Henrion, "Histoire generale de l'Eglise," XIII., p.32. (Speech by M. Roux-Laborie, deputy in 1816.)—At the present day, the ordinations oscillate between 1200 and 1700 per annum.]

[Footnote 5187: Decree of November 15, 1811, articles 28, 29, 32. "On and after July 1, 1812, all secondary ecclesiastical schools (small seminaries) which may not be situated in towns possessing a lycee or college shall be closed. No secondary ecclesiastical school shall be placed in the country. In all places where there are ecclesiastical schools the pupils of these schools shall pursue their studies in the lycee or college classes."]

[Footnote 5188: "Correspondence of Napoleon (notes for the Minister of Worship), July 30, 1806." In order to be cure of the first class, chanoin, vicar-general or bishop one must henceforth be bachelor, licencie, doctor in the university grades, "which the university may refuse in case the candidate shall be known to entertain ultramontane ideas or ideas dangerous to authority."]

[Footnote 5189: D'Haussonville, V., p.144 et seq. (Letter of Napoleon to the Minister of Worship, Oct.22, 1811, omitted in the "correspondence.") The letter ends with these words: "This mode of working must be kept secret."]

[Footnote 5190: "Histoire de M. Emery," by Abbe Elie Meric, II., p. 374. The order of expulsion (June 13, 1810) ends with these words: "Immediate possession is to be taken of the house which might belong to some domain and which, at least in this case, could be considered as public property, since it might belong to a congregation. If it is found to be private property belonging to M. Emery or to any other person, the rents might first be paid and then afterwards it might be required, save indemnity, as useful for the public service." This shows in full the administrative and fiscal spirit of the French State, its heavy hand being always ready to fall imperiously on every private individual and on all private property.]

[Footnote 5191: Letter of Napoleon, Oct. 8, 1811.]

[Footnote 5192: Ibid. Nov. 22, 1811.]

[Footnote 5193: D'Haussonville, V., p.282. (Letter of Napoleon, Aug. 14, 1813, omitted in the correspondence.)—"Memoires" du Chancelier Pasquier, II." pp. 88-91.]

[Footnote 5194: Roederer, III., p.430 (Germinal 19, year X): "The legate was received today in the consular palace; in making his speech, he trembled like a leaf."]

[Footnote 5195: Pelet de la Lozere, p.206 (May 22, 1804).]

[Footnote 5196: Decrees of May 31, 1804, Dec.26, 1804, and Sep.30. 1807, with the list of succursals by departments.—Besides the succursalists paid by the State, there were vicars not less dependent on the bishop and maintained by allowances from the communes or by private donations. (Bercastel et Henrion, XIII., p.32, speech by M. Roux-Laborie in the chamber of Deputies, 1816.) "In his re-composition of the Church of France the usurper established 12,000 vicars dependent on alms, and it will not surprise you that, instead of 12,000, there were only 5000 who were courageous enough to die of starvation or implore public charity.... Thus are 4000 country churches without worship or minister."]

[Footnote 5197: Thibaudeau, p. 166, and article of Brumaire 30, in the Moniteur.]

[Footnote 5198: Roederer, III., p. 479 et seq. (Report on the Senatorerie of Caen.) The priests everywhere feel that they are watched and set aside. "Most of those I encounter exclaim, Poor cure, an unfortunate cure. The functionaries are devoted to the Emperor as their sole support against the nobles, whom they dread, and against the priests, whom they slightly esteem.... The military, the judges, the administrators when alluding to the priests or to religion merely smile; the priests, on the other hand, express very little confidence in the functionaries."]

[Footnote 5199: Decree of Sept. 30, 1804 (with allotment of 800 scholarships and 1600 demi-scholarships to each diocesan seminary). These will be allowed us on being presented by the bishops.]

[Footnote 51100: D'Haussonville, II., p. 227.]

[Footnote 51101: Idem. IV. Order of arrest of M. d'Avian, archbishop of Bordeaux, as one of the opponents of the Council (July 11, 1811). Savary himself, Minister of Justice, raises objections. "Sire, do nothing with M. d'Avian. He is a saint and we shall have everybody against us."]

[Footnote 51102: Idem., IV. p. 58. Address of the ecclesiastical commission enumerating the favors granted to religion, "the legion of Honor, conferred on many prelates, the titles of baron and count assigned to bishops and archbishops of the Empire, the admission of several of these to the legislative assembly and senate."]

[Footnote 51103: D'Haussonville, IV.,p. 366. (Last session of the national council, August 5, 1811.)]

[Footnote 51104: Reading this, as Lenin must have done, could he help but dream of the day, when he could become head of a state, head of a foreign service, of a secret police force and hence be able to subvert the entire world including the religious organizations, the political parties, diplomatic services not to speak of international organizations in New York or Brussels. (SR.)]

[Footnote 51105: Idem., I., pp. 203-205.]

[Footnote 51106: Idem., p. 228. Cf. the "Almanach imperial de 1806-1814."—Lanfrey, "Histoire de Napoleon,"V., p. 208. The Prince de Rohan, head chaplain, writes in a request he makes, The great Napoleon is my tutelary divinity. On the margin of this request Napoleon attaches the following decision: "The Duc de Frioul will pay to the head chaplain 12,000 francs,—tax on receipts of the theatres." (Feb. 15, 1810.) Another example of the same type is M. Roquelaure, archbishop of Malines, who addresses Josephine with a little ancient-regime speech, at once episcopal and gallant. The First Consul, therefore, makes him Member of the Institute. (Bourrienne, V., p. 130.) This archbishop, in the administration of his diocese, zealously applies the policy of the First Consul. "We have seen him suspend from his functions a priest who had exhorted a dying man to restore ecclesiastical property which he had taken." ("Dictionnaire biographique," published at Leipsic by Eymery, 1806, 1808.)]

[Footnote 51107: Roederer, III., p. 459 (December 30, 1802).]

[Footnote 51108: D'Haussonville, II., 257. (Report by Portalis to the Emperor, Feb. 13, 1806.)—Idem., II., 226.]

[Footnote 51109: D'Haussonville, II., 237, 239, 272.—Pelet de la Lozere, 201: "At other times Napoleon praised the priests, wanted their services, largely attributing the departure of conscripts and the submission of the people to their influence."—Idem, 173 (May 20, 1806, words of Napoleon): "The Catholic priests behave very well and are of great service. It is owing to them that the conscription this year has been better than in former years... No branch of the State speaks so well of the government."]

[Footnote 51110: D'Haussonville, III, IV.,and V., passim.]

[Footnote 51111: "Memoires," by the Chancelier Pasquier, IV.,358.]

[Footnote 51112: D'Haussonville, IV.,366 (last phrase of the text): "A deputation of six bishops will go and beg His Holiness to confirm this decree."]

[Footnote 51113: To an ordinary reader, even Catholic, if not versed!in canon law, Napoleon's exactions seem mediocre and even acceptable; they reduce themselves down to fixing a delay and seeming to add to the competency of councils and the authority of bishops. (D'Haussonville, IV.,366, session of the council, Aug. 5, 1811, propositions adopted and decree. Cf. the Concordat of Fontainebleau, Jan. 25, 1813, article 4.)]

[Footnote 51114: Comte D'Haussonville, IV.,121 and following pages. (Letters of the prefect, M. de Chabrol, letters of Napoleon not inserted in the "Correspondence," narration of Dr. Claraz.) 6000 francs, a present to the bishop of Savona, 12,000 francs salary to Dr. Porta, the Pope's physician. "Dr. Porta," writes the prefect, "seems disposed to serve us indirectly with all his power.... Efforts are made to affect the Pope either by all who approach him or by all the means in our power."]

[Footnote 51115: Ibid. (Letters of M. de Chabrol, May 14 and 30, 1811.) "The Pope has fallen into a state of stupor.... The physician fears a case of hypochondria;... his health and reason are affected." Then, in a few days: "The state of mental alienation has passed."]

[Footnote 51116: Memorial (Aug.17, 1816).]

[Footnote 51117: D'Haussonville, V., 244. Later, the Pope keeps silent about his interviews with Napoleon. "He simply lets it be understood that the emperor spoke to him haughtily and contemptuously, even treating him as an ignoramus in ecclesiastical matters."—Napoleon met him with open arms and embraced him, calling him his father. (Thiers, XV., 295.)—It is probable that the best literary portrayal of these tete-a-tete conversations is the imaginary scene in "Grandeurs et Servitudes Militaires," by Alfred de Vigny.]

[Footnote 51118: Comte Chaptal, "Notes": "No, in the course of sixteen years of a stormy government, Bonaparte never met with so much resistance and never suffered so many disappointments as were caused by his quarrel with the Pope. There is no event in his life which more alienated the people as his proceedings and conduct towards the Pope."]

[Footnote 51119: Ultramontanism; a set of doctrines establishing the pope's absolute authority.]



CHAPTER II. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.



I. The Catholic System.

The effects of the system.—Completion of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.—Omnipotence of the Pope in the Church. —Influence of the French Concordat and other precedents from 1801 to 1870.—Why the clergy becomes ultramontane.—The dogma of Infallibility.

In 1801, at Rome, pending the negotiations for the Concordat, when Pius VII. still hesitated about the deposition in mass of the survivors of the ancient French episcopacy, clear-sighted observers already remarked, "Let this Concordat which the First Consul desires be completed,[5201] and you will see, on its ratification, its immense importance and the power it will give to Rome over the episcopacy throughout the universe."—In effect, through this "extraordinary, nearly unexampled" act of authority, and certainly unequaled "in the history of the Church,"[5202] the ultramontane theory, contested up to this time, maintained in the speculative region of abstract formulae, comes down to solid ground, into practical and lasting use. Willingly or not, "the Pope acts as if universal bishop;" urged and constrained by the lay power, attached to a dictatorship,[5203] he entered upon it and so installed himself, and, ten years later, Napoleon, who had impelled him on, regretted that he had done so. Warned by his Gallican jurists, he saw the ecclesiastical import of his work; but it was too late to retreat—the decisive step had been taken.—For, in fact, the Pope had deprived all the chieftains of a great church of their thrones, "his colleagues and co-bishops,"[5204] successors of the apostles under the same title as himself, members "of the same order and stamped "with the same "character," eighty-five legitimate incumbents[5205] and, still better, as admitted by himself, blameless, worthy, persecuted because they had obeyed him, banished from France on account of their unwillingness to quit the Roman Church. He had ordered them to resign; he had withdrawn apostolic powers from the thirteen who had refused to tender their resignations; to all, even to those who refused, he had appointed their successors. He assigned to the new titularies dioceses of a new pattern and, to justify novelties of such gravity,[5206] he could allege no other reasons than circumstances, the exigencies of lay power, and the welfare of the Church. After that the Gallicans themselves, unless accepting the risk of a schism and of separating forever from the Holy See, were obliged to allow the Pope above and beyond the ordinary powers exercised by him within the old limits of canons and of custom, an extraordinary power unlimited by any canon or by any custom,[5207] a plenary and absolute authority, a right above all other rights, by virtue of which, in cases determined by himself, he provided in a discretionary way for all Catholic interests, of which he thus becomes the supreme judge, the sole interpreter and the court of last appeal. An indestructible precedent was set up; it was the great corner-stone in the support of the modern Church edifice; on this definitive foundation all other stones were to be superposed, one by one. In 1801, Pius VII., under the pressure of the reigning Napoleon, had obliged the prelates of the old regime, sullied by a monarchical origin and suspected of zeal for the dethroned Bourbons, to abandon their seats. In 1816, under the pressure of the re-established Bourbons, the same Pius VII. obliged Fesch, cardinal-archbishop of Lyons, and uncle of the fallen Napoleon, to abandon his seat. Bercastel et Henrion, XIII, 192. Cardinal Fesch having been banished from France by the law of January 12, 1816, "the Pope no longer regarded the person of the cardinal, but the diocese that had to be saved at any cost, by virtue of the principle salus populi suprema lex. Consequently, he prohibited the cardinal from "exercising episcopal jurisdiction in his metropolitan church, and constituted M. de Bernis administrator of that church, spiritually as well as temporally, notwithstanding all constitutions decreed even by the general councils, the apostolic ordinances, privileges, etc." In both cases the situation was similar, and, in the latter as in the former case, motives of the same order warranted the same use of the same power.

But the situation, in being prolonged, multiplied, for the Church, the number of urgent cases, and, for the sovereign pontiff the number of cases of intervention. Since 1789, the entire civil order of things, constitutional, political, social and territorial, had become singularly unstable, not only in France but in Europe, not only on the old continent but likewise on the new one. Sovereign states by hundreds sunk under the strokes and counter-strokes, indefinitely propagated and enforced by the philosophy of the eighteenth century and of the French Revolution; others, by dozens, arose in their place, and, in these, different dynasties succeeded each other; here, Catholic populations falling under the rule of a schismatic or Protestant prince; there, this or that Catholic country, for fifteen years included in a mixed state, detached from it and constituted apart. In Protestant America, the Catholics, increased to millions, formed new communities in Catholic America, the colonies had become independent; almost everywhere in America and in Europe the maxims of government and of public opinion had changed. Now, after each of these changes, some initiative, some direction, some authority was necessary, in order to reconcile ecclesiastical with lay institutions; the Pope was on hand, and on each occasion he establishes this concord.[5208] At one time, by a diplomatic act analogous to the French Concordat of 1801, he negotiates with the sovereign of the country—Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Prussia, Austria, Spain, Portugal, the two Sicilies, the Netherlands, Belgium and Russia. Again, owing to the tolerant liberalism, or to the Constitutional indifference of the lay government, he alone prescribes, notably in Holland, in Ireland, in England, in Canada, and in the United States, a division of the country into ecclesiastical districts, the erection of new bishoprics, and the lasting regulation of the hierarchy, the discipline, the means of support and the recruiting of the clergy. Again, when sovereignty is in dispute, as after the emancipation of the Spanish colonies, he does without it, in spite of the opposition of the mother-country, and, "without putting himself in relation with the new governments,[5209] he, acting for himself, "that he may put an end to the widowhood of the Churches," appoints bishops, assigns them a provisional regime in anticipation of the epoch when, in concert with better founded governments, he will decree their definitive regime. In this way, all the great existing churches of the Catholic universe are the work of the Pope, his latest work, his own creation attested by a positive act of contiguous date, and of which the souvenir is vivid: he has not recognized them—he has made them; he has given them their external form and their internal structure; no one of them can look within itself without finding in its laws the fresh imprint of the sovereign hand which has fashioned it; none of them can assert or even believe itself legitimate without declaring the superior authority to be legitimate which has just endowed it with life and being. The last step, the greatest of all, above the terrestrial and practical order of things, in speculative theology, in the revelation of the supernatural, in the definition of things that are divine: the Pope, the better to prove his autocracy, in 1854, decrees, solely, of his own accord, a new dogma, the immaculate conception of the Virgin, and he is careful to note that he does it without the concurrence of the bishops; they were on hand, but they neither deliberated nor decided.[5210]

Thus arise durable powers, spiritual or temporal, little by little, through the uninterrupted and uncontested series of their acts; from 1791 to 1870 all ecclesiastical precedents, one added to another, became consolidated, one through the other and through their mass; story after story, steadily ascending and converging to raise the Pope higher still, until at last, on the summit of the edifice, the Holy See becomes the keystone of the arch, the omnipotence of fact being completed by omnipotence of right.

Meanwhile Catholic opinion came to the aid of pontifical opinion, and, in France, the clergy spontaneously became ultramontane because there was no longer any motive for remaining Gallican. Since the Revolution, the Concordat and the Organic Articles, all the sources which maintained in it a national as well as particularist spirit, had dried up; in ceased being a distinct, proprietary and favored body; its members are no longer leagued together by the community of a temporal interest, by the need of defending their privileges, by the faculty of acting in concert, by the right of holding periodical assemblies; they are no longer, as formerly, attached to the civil power by great social and legal advantages, by their honorable priority in lay society, by their immunities from taxation, by the presence and influence of their bishops in the provincial parliaments, by the noble origin and magnificent endowments of nearly all their prelates, by the repressive support which the secular arm lent to the church against dissenters and free-thinkers, by the immemorial legislation and customs which, erecting Catholicism into a State religion, imposed the Catholic faith on the monarch, not alone in his quality of a private individual and to fix his personal belief, but again in his quality of public magistrate, to influence his policy and to share in his government. This last article is capital, and out of its abrogation the rest follows: at this turn of the road the French clergy is thrown off the Gallican track, every step it takes after this being on the way to Rome. For, according to Catholic doctrine, outside of the Roman Church there is no salvation; to enter it, to rest in it, to be led by it is the highest interest and first duty of man; it is the unique and infallible guide; all acts that it condemns are culpable, and not only private acts, but likewise all public acts; the sovereign who commits them may, as an individual, be Catholic by profession and even loyal at heart; but, as a ruler, he is disloyal, he has lost his semi-ecclesiastic character, he has ceased to be "the exterior bishop," he is not worthy to command a clerical body. Henceforth, the Christian conscience no longer bows down before him with love and respect; nothing remains to him for support but social prudence; and again is it with resignation, because the Church commands obedience to the authorities, and the same Church commands disobedience to these authorities when, abusing their power, they encroach on its rights.

Now, ten years ago, the State had done nothing else, and, to the old Concordat which was not good, it had just substituted a Concordat that was worse. This new alliance, concluded by it with the Church in 1802, is not a religious marriage, the solemn sacrament by which, at Rheims, she and the King promised to live together and in harmony in the same faith, but a simple civil contract, more precisely the legal regulation of a lasting and deliberate divorce.—In a paroxysm of despotism the State has stripped the Church of its possessions and turned it out of doors, without clothes or bread, to beg on the highways; next, in a fit of rage, its aim was to kill it outright, and it did partially strangle it. Recovering its reason, but having ceased to be Catholic, it has forced the signature of a pact which is repugnant, and which reduces their moral union to physical cohabitation. Willingly or not, the two contracting parties are to continue living together in the same domicile, since that is the only one they possess; but, as there is incompatibility of humor, they will do well to live apart. To this end, the State assigns a small, distinct lodging to the Church and allows her a meager supply of food; this done, it fancies that it may cry quits; and, worse still, it imagines that she is always its subject, and still pretends to the same authority over her; the State is determined to retain all rights conferred upon it by the old marriage, and these rights it exercises and adds to. Meanwhile, it admits into the same lodging three other Churches which it subjects to the same regime: that makes four mess-rooms to be maintained and which it watches, supports and utilizes the best it can for the temporal advantage of the household. There is nothing more odious to the Catholic Church than this advertised, practical polygamy, this subvention granted indifferently to all cults, this patronage in common, more insulting than abandonment, this equal treatment[5211] which places the pulpit of truth and the pulpits of falsehood, the ministry of salvation and the ministries of perdition, on the same footing. Nothing is more serviceable for alienating a Catholic clergy, for making it consider civil power as foreign, usurping, or even inimical, for detaching the Gallican Church from its French center, for driving it back towards its Roman center and for handing it over to the Pope.

Henceforth, the latter is the unique center, the sole surviving head of the Church, inseparable from it because he is naturally its head and because it is naturally his body; and all the more because this mutual tie has been strengthened by trials. Head and body have been struck together, by the same hands, and each on the other's account. The Pope has suffered like the Church, along with and for it. Pius VI., dethroned and borne off by the Directory, died in prison at Valence; Pius VII., dethroned and carried off by Napoleon, is confined, sequestered and outraged for four years in France, while all generous hearts take sides with the oppressed against his oppressors. Moreover, his dispossession adds to his prestige: it can no longer be claimed that territorial interests prevail with him over Catholic interests; therefore, according as his temporal power diminishes his spiritual power expands, to such an extent that, in the end, after three-quarters of a century, just at the moment when the former is to fall to the ground the latter is to rise above the clouds; through the effacement of his human character his superhuman character becomes declared; the more the sovereign prince disappears, the more does the sovereign pontiff assert himself. The clergy, despoiled like him of its hereditary patrimony and confined like him to its sacerdotal office, exposed to the same dangers, menaced by the same enemies, rallies around him the same as an army around its general; inferiors and superiors, they are all priests alike and are nothing else, with a clearer and clearer conscience of the solidarity which binds them together and subordinates the inferiors to the superiors. From one ecclesiastical generation to another,[5212] the number of the refractory, of the intractable and of independents, rigorists or the lax, goes on decreasing, some, conscientious Jansenists, hardened and sectarians of the "Little Church," others, semi-philosophers, tolerant and liberal, both inheriting too narrow convictions or too broad opinions for maintaining themselves and spreading in the newly founded society (milieu).[5213] They die out, one by one, while their doctrines fall into discredit and then into oblivion. A new spirit animates the new clergy, and, after 1808, Napoleon remarks of it, "It does not complain of the old one, and is even satisfied with it; but, he says, they are bringing up new priests in a sombre fanatical doctrine: there is nothing Gallican in the youthful clergy,"[5214] no sympathy for the civil power. After Napoleon, and on getting out of his terrible hands, the Catholics have good reasons for their repugnance to his theology; it has put too many Catholics in jail, the most eminent in rank, in holiness, bishops and cardinals, including the Pope. Gallican maxims are dishonored by the use Napoleon has made of them. Canon law, in public instruction and in the seminaries (of the Catholics), ends insensibly in unlooked-for conclusions; texts and arguments opposed to the Pope's authority seem weaker and weaker; texts and arguments favorable to the Pope's authority seem stronger and stronger;[5215] the doctors most deferred to are no longer Gerson and Bossuet, but Bellarmin and Suarez; flaws are discovered in the decrees of the council of Constance; the Declaration of the clergy of France in 1682 is found to contain errors condemned and open to condemnation.[5216] After 1819, M. de Maistre, a powerful logician, matchless herald and superb champion, in his book on "The Pope," justifies, prepares and announces the coming constitution of the Church.—Step by step, the assent of Catholic community is won or mastered;[5217] on approaching 1870, it is nearly universal; after 1870, it is wholly so and could not be otherwise; whoever refuses to submit is excluded from the community and excludes himself from it, for he denies a dogma which it professes, a revealed dogma, an article of faith which the Pope and the council have just decreed. Thenceforward, the Pope, in his magisterial pulpit, in the eyes of every man who is and wants to remain Catholic, is infallible; when he gives his decision on faith or on morals, Jesus Christ himself speaks by his mouth, and his definitions of doctrine are "irrefutable," "they are so of themselves, they alone, through their own virtue, and not by virtue of the Church's consent."[5218] For the same reason, his authority is absolute, not only in matters which concern faith and morals, but again in matters which concern the discipline and government of the Church."[5219] His judgment may be resorted to in every ecclesiastical case; nobody is allowed to question his verdict; "nobody is allowed to appeal to the future oecumenical council;"[5220] He has not only "a priority by right, an office of inspection and of direction; he holds again priority of jurisdiction, a full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the universal Church,... ", "the total plenitude of this supreme power," not indirectly and extraordinarily, but "directly and ordinarily, over all churches and over each one of them, over all pastors and all believers, over each believer and each of the pastors."—Read this in the Latin: each word, through its ancient root and through its historic vegetation, contributes to strengthening the despotic and Roman sense of the text; the language of the people which invented and practiced dictatorship had to be employed for the affirmation of dictatorship with that precision and that copiousness, with that excess of energy and of conviction.



II. The Bishops and their new Situation.

The bishop in his diocese.—Change of situation and role. —Depreciation of other local authorities.—Diminution of other ecclesiastical authorities.—Decline of the chapter and the jurisdiction.—The bishop alone dispenses rigors and favors.—Use of displacement.—Second-class clergy subject to military discipline.—Why it submits to this.

The change brought about in the condition and role of the bishop was not less grave. Along with the court noblesse and great ecclesiastical property, we see the prelate of the old regime disappearing by degrees, the younger son of a noble family, promoted by favor and very young, endowed with a large income and much more a man of the world than of the Church. In 1789, out of 134 bishops or archbishops, only 5 were of plebeian origin; in 1889, out of 90 bishops or archbishops there are only 4 of them nobles;[5221] previous to the Revolution, the titular of an Episcopal see enjoyed, on the average, a revenue of 100,000 francs; at the present day, he receives only a salary of from 10,000 to 15,000 francs.[5222] In place of the grand seignior, an amiable and magnificent host, given to display and to entertaining the best company, keeping an open table in his diocese when he happens to be there, but generally absent, an habitue of Paris or a courtier at Versailles, we see another stepping forward to take his seat He is bearing the same title, is a personage whose habits and origins are different, a resident administrator, much less ornamental but much more active and governing, provided with a more ample jurisdiction, with more absolute authority and wielding more effective influence. The final effect of the Revolution in relation to the bishop is the same as in relation to the Pope, and in the French diocese, as in the universal Church, the modern regime sets up a central, extraordinary, enormous power of which the ancient regime knew nothing.

Formerly, the bishop encountered around him, on the spot, equals and rivals, bodies of men or individuals, as independent and powerful as himself, irremovable, owners of estates, dispensers of offices and of favors, local authorities by legal sanction, permanent patrons of a permanent class of dependents. In his own cathedral, his metropolitan chapter was, like himself, a collator of benefice; elsewhere, other chapters were so likewise and knew how to maintain their rights against his supremacy. In each body of regular clergy, every grand abbot or prior, every noble abbess was, like himself, a sort of sovereign prince. The territorial seignior and justiciary on his own domain, was through the partial survival of the old wholly secular feudal order equally sovereign. Likewise sovereign, was, for its part, the parliament of the province, with its rights of registry and of remonstrance, with its administrative attributes and interference, with its train of loyal auxiliaries and subordinates, from the judges of the presidencies and bailiwicks down to the corporations of advocates, prosecutors and other members of the bar.[5223] The parliamentarians of the district capital (chef-lieu), purchasers and owners of their offices, magistrates from father to son, much wealthier and much prouder than nowadays, were, in their old hereditary mansions, the real chiefs of the province, its constant representatives on the spot, its popular defenders against ministerial and royal absolutism. All these powers, which once counterbalanced episcopal power, have disappeared. Restricted to their judicial office, the tribunals have ceased to be political authorities and moderators of the central government: in the town and department, the mayor and general councilors, appointed or elected for a certain time, enjoy only temporary credit; the prefect, the military commandant, the rector, the treasurer-general are merely passing strangers. The local circumscription, for a century, is an exterior post where individuals live together in contact but not associated; no longer does any intimate, lasting and strong bond exist between them; nothing remains of the old province but a population of inhabitants, a given number of private persons under unstable functionaries. The bishop alone has maintained himself intact and erect, a dignitary for life, the conductor, by title and in fact, of a good many persons, the stationary and patient undertaker of a great service, the unique general and undisputed commander of a special militia which, through conscience and professions, gathers close around him and, every morning, awaits his orders. Because in his essence, he is a governor of souls. Revolution and centralization have not encroached on his ecclesiastical prerogative. Thanks to this indelible quality he has been able to endure the suppression of the others; these have come back to him of themselves and with others added, comprising local superiority, real importance and local ascendancy; including the various honorable appellations which, under the ancient regime, denoted his rank and preeminence; at the present day, under the modern regime, they are no longer in use for a layman and even for a minister of state; after 1802, one of the articles of the Organic Laws,[5224] interdicts them to bishops and archbishops; they are "allowed to add to their name only the title of citizen and monsieur." But practically, except in the official almanac, everybody addresses a prelate as "my lord," and in the clergy, among believers, in writing or in speaking to him, he is called "your Grace," under the republic as under the monarchy.

Thus, in this provincial soil where other powers have lost their roots, not only has he kept his, but he has extended them and much farther; he has grown beyond all measure and now the whole ecclesiastical territory belongs to him. Formerly, on this territory, many portions of it, and quite large ones, were enclosures set apart, reserves that an immemorial wall prevented him from entering. It was not he who, in a great majority of cases, conferred livings and offices; it was not he who, in more than one-half of them, appointed to vacant curacies. At Besancon,[5225] among 1500 benefices and livings, he once conferred less than 100 of them, while his metropolitan chapter appointed as many cures as himself; at Arras, he appointed only 47 cures and his chapter 66; at Saint-Omer, among the collators of curacies he ranked only third, after the abbey of Saint-Martin and after the chapter of the cathedral. At Troyes, he could dispose only of 197 curacies out of 372; at Boulogne, out of 180, he had only 80, and this again because the chapter voluntarily abandoned to him 16. Naturally, the eyes of all candidates turned towards the collator; and, among the highest and most lucrative places, those which gave the least trouble and afforded the most satisfaction, all sinecures, ranks, simple benefices and large urban curacies, probendaries and canonicates, most of the offices, titles, and incomes that might tempt human ambition, were in the hands, not of the bishop, but of the king or of the Pope, of an abbot or prior, of an abbess, or of a certain university,[5226] of this or that cathedral or college-body, of a lay seignior, of a patentee, or of an indultaire, and often of the titulary himself. Thus, the hold of the bishop on his clercs was feeble; he did not hold them through the hope of a favor. And, on the other hand, he had still less hold on them, no hold at all, through fear of losing favor. They might displease him almost with impunity; his faculty for punishment was much more restricted than his means of recompense. His subordinates could find shelter and refuge against his displeasure, and even against his hostility. In the first place, and as a principle, a titulary, whether ecclesiastic or secular, owned his office and hence was irremovable; they themselves, plain vicar-curates, the humble desservans[5227] of a rural parish, had acquired this privilege through the declarations of 1726 and 1731.[5228] Moreover, in case of interdiction, suspension or of censure, a titulary could always recur to the courts against episcopal judgment and any other, against all encroachment on spiritual or temporal prerogatives, or on those which were useful or honorary belonging to his charge.

These courts were of two kinds, one ecclesiastical and the other secular, and in each an appeal could be made from a lower to a higher court, from the diocesan official to the metropolitan official, and from the presidial to the parliament, with a complete judicial staff, judge, assessors, public ministry, prosecutors, advocates and clerks, restricted to the observing of all judicial formalities, authentic papers, citations of witnesses and challenges of testimony, interrogatories and pleadings, allegation of canons, laws and precedents, presence of the defendant, opposing arguments, delays in procedure, publicity and scandal. Before the slow march and inconveniences of such a trial, the bishop often avoided giving judgment, and all the more because his verdicts, even when confirmed by the ecclesiastical court, might be warded off or rendered ineffective by the lay tribunal; for, from the former to the latter, there was an appeal under writ of error, and the latter, a jealous rival of the former, was ill-disposed towards the sacerdotal authorities;[5229] besides, in the latter case, far more than in the former, the bishop found confronting him not merely the more or less legal right of his own party, but again the allies and patrons of his party, corporations and individuals who, according to an accepted usage, interfered through their solicitations with the judges and openly placed their credit at the service of their protege. With so many spokes in the wheels, the working of an administrative machine was difficult; to give it effective motion, it required the steady pressure, the constant starting, the watchful and persistent efforts of a laborious, energetic, and callous hand, while, under the ancient regime, the delicate white hands of a gentleman-prelate were ill-adapted to this rude business; they were too nicely washed, too soft. To manage personally and on the spot a provincial, complicated and rusty machine, always creaking and groaning, to give one's self up to it, to urge and adjust twenty local wheels, to put up with knocks and splashes, to become a business man, that is to say a hard worker—nothing was less desirable for a grand seignior of that epoch. In the Church as in the State, he made the most of his rank; he collected and enjoyed its fruits, that is to say money, honors and gratifications, and, among these gratifications, the principal one, leisure; hence, he abandoned every special duty, the daily manipulation of men and things, the practical direction, all effective government, to his ecclesiastical or lay intendants, to subordinates whom he scarcely looked after and who, at his own house, on his own domain, replaced him as fixed residents. The bishop, in his own diocese, left the administration in the hands of his canons and grand-vicars; "the official decided without his meddling."[5230] The machine thus worked alone and by itself, with very few shocks, in the old rut established by routine; he helped it along only by the influence he exercised at Paris and Versailles, by recommendations to the ministers in reality, he was merely the remote and worldly representative of his ecclesiastical principality at court and in the drawing-room.[5231] When, from time to time, he made his appearance there, the bells were rung; deputations from all bodies hurried to his antechambers; each authority in turn, and according to the order of precedence, paid him its little compliment, which compliment he graciously returned and then, the homage being over, he distributed among them benedictions and smiles. After this, with equal dignity and still more graciously throughout his sojourn, he invited the most eligible to his table and, in his episcopal palace or in his country-house, he treated them as guests. This done, he had performed his duty; the rest was left to his secretaries, ecclesiastical officials and clerks, men of the bureaux, specialists and "plodders." "Did you read my pastoral letter?" said a bishop to Piron. And Piron, who was very outspoken, dared reply, "Yes, my lord. And yourself?"

Under the modern regime, this suzerain for show, negligent and intermittent, is succeeded by an active sovereign whose reign is personal and constant; the limited and easy monarchy of the diocese is converted into an universal and absolute monarchy. When the bishop, once invested and consecrated, enters the choir of his cathedral to the reverberations of the organ, lighted with wax candles amidst clouds of incense, and seats himself in solemn pomp[5232] "on his throne," he is a prince who takes possession of his government, which possession is not nominal or partial, but real and complete. He holds in his hand "the splendid cross which the priests of his diocese have presented to him," in witness of and symbolizing their voluntary, eager and full obedience; and this pastoral baton is larger than the old one. In the ecclesiastical herd, no head browses at a distance or under cover; high or low, all are within reach, all eyes are turned towards the episcopal crook; at a sign made by the crook, and according to the signal, each head forthwith stands, advances or recedes: it knows too well that the shepherd's hands are free and that it is subject to its will. Napoleon, in his reconstruction of the diocese, made additions to only one of the diocesan powers, that of the bishop; he suffered the others to remain low down, on the ground. The delays, complications and frictions of a divided government were repugnant to him; he had no taste for and no comprehension of any but a concentrated government; he found it convenient to deal with but one man, a prefect of the spiritual order, as pliable as his colleague of the temporal order, a mitered grand functionary—such was the bishop in his eyes. This is the reason why he did not oblige him to surround himself with constitutional and moderating authorities; he did not restore the ancient bishop's court and the ancient chapter; he allowed his prelates themselves to pen the new diocesan statute.—Naturally, in the division of powers, the bishop reserved the best part to himself, the entire substance, and, to limit his local omnipotence, there remained simply lay authority. But, in practice, the shackles by which the civil government kept him in its dependence, broke or became relaxed one by one. Among the Organic Articles, almost all of them which subjected or repressed the bishop fell into discredit or into desuetude. Meanwhile, those which authorized and exalted the bishop remained in vigor and maintained their effect. Consequently, Napoleon's calculation, in relation to the bishop or in relation to the Pope, proved erroneous. He wanted to unite in one person two incompatible characters, to convert the dignitaries of the Church into dignitaries of the State, to make functionaries out of potentates. The functionary insensibly disappeared; the potentate alone subsisted and still subsists.

At the present day, conformably to the statute of 1802, the cathedral chapter,[5233] except in case of one interim, is a lifeless and still-born body, a vain simulachre; it is always, by title or on paper, the Catholic "senate," the bishop's obligatory "council";[5234] but he takes his councillors where he pleases, outside of the chapter, if that suits him, and he is free not to take any of them, "to govern alone, to do all himself." It is he who appoints to all offices, to the five or six hundred offices of his diocese; he is the universal collator of these and, nine times out of ten, the sole collator; excepting eight or nine canonships and the thirty or forty cantonal curacies, which the government must approve, he alone makes appointments and without any person's concurrence. Thus, in the way of favors, his clerical body has nothing to expect from anybody but himself.—And, on the other hand, they no longer enjoy any protection against his harshness; the hand which punishes is still less restrained than that which rewards; like the cathedral chapter, the ecclesiastical tribunal has lost its consistency and independence, its efficiency; nothing remains of the ancient bishop's court but an appearance and a name.[5235]

At one time, the bishop in person is himself the whole court; he deliberates only with himself and decides ex informata conscientia without a trial, without advice, and, if he chooses, in his own cabinet with closed doors, in private according to facts, the value of which he alone estimates, and through motives of which he is the sole appreciator. At another time, the presiding magistrate is one of his grand-vicars, his revocable delegate, his confidential man, his megaphone, in short, another self, and this official acts without the restraint of ancient regulations, of a fixed and understood procedure beforehand, of a series of judicial formalities, of verifications and the presence of witnesses, of the delays and all other legal precautions which guard the judge against prejudice, haste, error, and ignorance and without which justice always risks becoming injustice. In both cases, the head over which the sentence is suspended lacks guarantees, and, once pronounced, this sentence is definitive. For, on appeal to the court of the metropolitan bishop, it is always confirmed;[5236] the bishops support each other, and, let the appellant be right or wrong, the appeal is in itself a bad mark against him: he did not submit at once, he stood out against reproof, he was lacking in humility, he has set an example of insubordination, and this alone is a grave fault. There remains the recourse to Rome; but Rome is far off,[5237] and, while maintaining her superior jurisdiction, she does not willingly cancel an episcopal verdict; she treats prelates with respect, she is careful of her lieutenant-generals, her collectors of Saint Peter's pence. As to the lay tribunals, these have declared themselves incompetent,[5238] and the new canon law teaches that never, "under the pretext of a writ of error, may a priest make an appeal to the secular magistrate";[5239] through this appeal, "he derogates from the authority and liberty of the Church and is liable to the gravest censures;" he betrays his order.

Such is now, for the lower clergy, ecclesiastical law, and likewise secular law, both agreeing together in not affording him protection; add to this change in the jurisprudence which concerns him a no less divisive change in the jurisprudence which concerns him a no less decisive change in the titles which place and qualify him. Before 1789, there were in France 36,000 cures entitled irremovable; at the present day, there are only 3,425; before 1789, there were only 2500 cures entirely removable, while to-day there are 34,042;[5240] all of the latter, appointed by the bishop without the approbation of the civil powers, are removable at his discretion; their parochial ministry is simply a provisional commission; they may be placed elsewhere, passing from one precarious curacy to another no less precarious. "At Valence,[5241] Mgr. Chartrousse, in one month transferred 150 priests from one parish to another. In 1835, in the diocese of Valence, 35 transfers were sent out by the same mail." No assistant-priest, however long in his parish, feels that he is at home there, on his own domain, for the rest of his life; he is merely there in garrison, about the same as lay functionaries and with less security, even when irreproachable. For he may be transplanted, not alone for spiritual reasons, but likewise for political reasons. He has not grown less worthy, but the municipal council or the mayor have taken a dislike to his person; consequently to tranquilize things, he is displaced. Far better, he had become worthy and is on good terms with the municipal council and the mayor; wherever he has lived he has known how to mollify these, and consequently "he is removed from parish to parish,[5242] chosen expressly to be put into those where there are troublesome, wrangling, malevolent, and impious mayors." It is for the good of the service and in the interest of the Church. The bishop subordinates persons to this superior interest. The legislation of 1801 and 1802 has conferred full powers upon him and he exercises them; among the many grips by which he holds his clergy the strongest is the power of removal, and he uses it. Into all civil or ecclesiastical institutions Napoleon, directly or by counterstrokes, has injected his spirit, the military spirit; hence the authoritative regime, still more firmly established in the Church than in the State, because that is the essence of the Catholic institution; far from being relaxed in this, it has become stricter; at present it is avowed, proclaimed, and even made canonical; the bishop, in our days, in fact as in law, is a general of division, and, in law as in fact, his cures are simply sergeants or corporals.[5243] Command, from such a lofty grade falls direct, with extraordinary force, on grades so low, and, at the first stroke, is followed by passive obedience. Discipline in a diocese is as perfect as in an army corps, and the prelates publicly take pride in it. "It is an insult," said Cardinal de Bonnechose to the Senate,[5244] "to suppose that we are not masters in our own house, that we cannot direct our clergy, and that it is the clergy which directs us... There is no general within its walls who would accept the reproach that could not compel the obedience of his soldiers. Each of us has command of a regiment, and the regiment marches."



III. The new Bishop.

Change in the habits and ways of the bishop.—His origin, age, capability, mode of living, labor, initiative, undertakings, and moral and social ascendancy. [5245]

In order to make troops march, a staff, even a croisier, is not enough; to compulsory subordination voluntary subordination must be added; therefore, legal authority in the chief should be accompanied with moral authority; otherwise he will not be loyally supported and to the end. In 1789, this was not the case with the bishop; on two occasions, and at two critical moments, the clergy of the inferior order formed a separate band, at first at the elections, by selecting for deputies cures and not prelates, and next in the national assembly, by abandoning the prelates to unite with the Third Estate. The intimate hold of the chief on his men was relaxed or broken. His ascendency over them was no longer sufficiently great; they no longer had confidence in him. His subordinates had come to regard him as he was, a privileged individual, sprung from a another stock and furnished by a class apart, bishop by right of birth, without a prolonged apprenticeship, having rendered no services, without tests of merit, almost an interloper in the body of his clergy, a Church parasite accustomed to spending the revenues of his diocese away from his diocese, idle and ostentatious, often a shameless gallant or obnoxious hunter, disposed to be a philosopher and free-thinker, and who lacked two qualifications for a leader of Christian priests: first, ecclesiastical deportment, and next, and very often, Christian faith.[5246]

All these gaps in and discrepancies of episcopal character, all these differences and distances (which existed before 1789), between the origins, interests, habits, and manners of the lower and the upper clergy, all these inequalities and irregularities which alienated inferiors from the superior, have disappeared; the modern regime has leveled the wall of separation established by the ancient regime between the bishop and his priests. At the present day he is, like them, a plebeian, of common extraction, and sometimes very low, one being the son of a village shoemaker, another the natural son of a poor workwoman, both being men of feeling and never blushing at their humble origin, openly tender and respectful to their mothers,—a certain bishop lodging his mother, formerly a servant, in his episcopal palace and giving her the first seat at his table among the most honored and noblest of his guests.[5247] He is "one of fortune's officers," that is to say, a meritorious and old officer.[5248] According the "Almanac" of 1889, the three youngest are from forty-seven to forty-nine years of age; all the others are fifty and over; among the latter, three fourths of them are over sixty. As a general rule, a priest cannot become a bishop short of twenty or twenty-five years' service in lower or average grades; he must have remained in each grade a longer or shorter period, in turn vicar, cure, vicar-general, canon, head of a seminary, sometimes coadjutor, and almost always have distinguished himself in some office, either as preacher or catechist, professor or administrator, canonist or theologian. His full competence cannot be contested, and he enjoys a right to exact full obedience; he has himself rendered it up to his consecration; "he boasts of it," and the example he proposes to his priests is the one he has himself given.[5249] On the other hand, his moderate way of living excites but little envy; it is about like that of a general of division, or of a prefect, or of a high civil functionary who, lacking personal fortune, has nothing but his salary to live on. He does not display, as formerly, confessionals lined with satin, kitchen utensil of massive silver, hunting accoutrements, a hierarchical staff of major-domos, ushers, valets, and liveried lackeys, stables and carriages, lay grand-seigniors, vassals of his suzerainty and figuring at his consecration, a princely ceremonial of parade and homage, a pompous show of receptions and of hospitalities. There is nothing but what is necessary, the indispensable instruments of his office: an ordinary carriage for his episcopal journeys and town visits, three or four domestics for manual service, three or four secretaries for official writings, some old mansion or other, cheaply repaired and refurnished without ostentation, its rooms and bureaus being those of an administrator, business man, and responsible head of a numerous staff; in effect, he is responsible for a good many subordinates, he has a good deal to attend to; he works himself, looking after the whole and in detail, keeping classified files by means of a chronological and systematic collection,[5250] like the general director of a vast company; if he enjoys greater honors, he is subject to greater exigencies; assuredly, his predecessors under the ancient regime, delicate Epicureans, would not have wished for such a life; they would not have considered the benefit worth the effort.

Even when old, he draws on his energies; he officiates, he preaches, he presides at long ceremonies, he ordains seminarians, he confirms thousands of children,[5251] he visits one after another the parishes in his diocese; often, at the end of his administration, he has visited them all and many times. Meanwhile, shut up in his episcopal cabinet, he is constantly inspecting these four or five hundred parishes; he reads or listens to reports, informs himself on the number of communicants, on what is required in worship, on the financial state of the fabrique, on the attitude of the inhabitants, on the good or bad dispositions of municipal counselors and mayors, on the local cause of dissension and conflict, on the conduct and character of the cure or vicar; each resident ecclesiastic needs guidance or maintenance between intemperate zeal and inert lukewarmness, evenly balanced according as parishes and circumstances vary, but always in a way to prevent false steps, to turn aside mistakes, to humor opinion, to stop scandals. For the entire life of the clergyman, not only his public life but again his personal, domestic, private life, belongs to and concerns the Church:[5252] there must be no evil reports, even without foundation, on his account; if these occur, the bishop summons him to headquarters, warns him, admonishes him, and, without unburdening himself by handing the matter over to a responsible tribunal, he alone passes judgment after personally conducting the investigations, suffering the worries, and carrying out the painful, painstaking labor always attendant on direct absolute power. Likewise, in relation to his upper and his lower seminary: here are two indispensable nurseries of which he is the head gardener, attentive to filling annual vacancies and seeking proper subjects for these throughout his diocese, ever verifying and cultivating their vocations; he confers scholarships; he dictates rules and regulations; appoints and dismisses, displaces and procures as he pleases, the director and professors; he takes them, if he chooses, out of his diocese or out of the body of regular clergy; he prescribes a doctrine to them, methods, ways of thinking and teaching, and he keeps his eye, beyond his present or future priests, on three or four hundred monks and on fourteen hundred nuns.

As to the monks, so long as they remain inside their dwellings, in company together and at home, he has nothing to say to them; but, when they come to preach, confess, officiate or teach in public on his ground, they fall under his jurisdiction; in concert with their superior and with the Pope, he has rights over them and he uses them. They are now his auxiliaries assigned to or summoned by him, available troops and a reinforcement, so many chosen companies expressly ready, each with its own discipline, its particular uniform, its special weapon, and who bring to him in following a campaign under his orders, distinct aptitudes and a livelier zeal. He needs them[5253] in order to make up for the insufficiency of his local clergy in arousing the spirit of devotion in his parishes and in enforcing sound doctrine in his seminaries. Now, between these two forces a common understanding is difficult; the former, adjuncts and flying about, march in front; the latter, holding the ground and stationary, look upon the new-comers as usurpers who lessen both their popularity and their fees; a bishop must possess great tact as well as energy to impose on both bodies of this clergy, if not an intimate union, at least mutual aid and a collaboration without conflict.—As to the nuns,[5254] he is their ordinary, the sole arbiter, overseer and ruler over all these cloistered lives; he receives their vows, and renders them free of them; it is he who, after due inquiry and examination, authorizes each entrance into the community or a return to society, at first each admission or novitiate, and next each profession of faith or assumption of the veil, every dismissal or departure of a nun, every claim that one makes, every grave act of severity or decision on the part of the superior. He approves of, or appoints, the confessor of the establishment; he maintains seclusion in it, he draws tighter or relaxes the observances; he himself enters its doors by privilege of his office, and, with his own eyes, he inspects its regime, spiritual and temporal, through a right of control which extends from the direction of souls to the administration of property.

To so many obligatory matters he adds others which are voluntary, not alone works of piety, those relating to worship, propaganda, diocesan missions, catechizing adults, brotherhoods for perpetual adoration, meetings for the uninterrupted recital of the rosary, Peter's pence, seminary funds, Catholic journals and reviews-but, again, institutions for charity and education.[5255] In the way of charity, he founds or supports twenty different kinds, sixty in one diocese alone, general and special services, infant nurseries, clubs, asylums, lodging-houses, patronages, societies for helping and placing the poor, for the sick at home and in the hospitals, for suckling infants, for the deaf and dumb, for the blind, for old men, for orphans, for repentant prostitutes, for prisoners, for soldiers in garrison, for workmen, apprentices, youths, and quantities of others. In the way of education, there are yet more of them—works which the Catholic chiefs have most at heart; without these, it is impossible in modern society to preserve the faith in each new generation. Hence, at each turning-point of political history, we see the bishops benefiting by the toleration or warding off the intolerance of the teaching State, competing with it, erecting alongside of its public schools free schools of its own, directed or served by priests or religious brotherhoods;—after the suppression of the university monopoly in 1850, more than one hundred colleges[5256] for secondary education; after the favorable law of 1875, four or five provincial faculties or universities for superior instruction after the hostile laws of 1882, many thousands of parochial schools for primary instruction.

Foundation and support, all this is expensive. The bishop requires a great deal of money, especially since the State, become ill-disposed, cuts off clerical resources as much as possible, no longer maintains scholarships in the seminaries, deprives suspicious desservans of their small stipends, eats into the salaries of the prelates, throws obstacles in the way of communal liberalities, taxes and over taxes the congregations, so that, not merely through the diminution of its allowances it relieves itself at the expense of the Church, but again, through the increase of its imposts, it burdens the Church for its own advantage. The episcopacy obtains all necessary funds through collections in the churches and at domiciles, through the gifts and subscriptions of the faithful; and, every year, it needs millions, apart from the budget appropriation, for its faculties and universities in which it installs largely paid professors, for the construction, location and arrangement of its countless buildings, for the expenses of its minor schools, for the support of its ten thousand seminarists, for the general out-lay on so many charitable institutions; and it is the bishop who, their principal promoter, must provide for this, all the more because he has often taken it upon himself in advance, and made himself responsible for it by either a written or verbal promise. He responds to all these engagements; he has funds on hand at the maturity of each contract. In 1883, the bishop of Nancy, in need of one hundred thousand francs to build a school-house with a work-room attached to it, mentions this to a number of persons assembled in his drawing-room; one of these puts his hand in his pocket and gives him ten thousand francs, and others subscribe on the spot to the amount of seventy-four thousand francs.[5257] Cardinal Mathieu, during his administration, archbishop of Besancon, thus collects and expends four millions. Lately, Cardinal Lavigerie, to whom the budget allows fifteen thousand francs per annum, wrote that he had spent eighteen hundred thousand francs and had incurred no debt.[5258]—Through this initiative and this ascendancy the bishop becomes a central social rallying-point; there is no other in the provinces, nothing but so many disjointed lives, juxtaposed and kept together in an artificial circle prescribed from above; so that a good many of these, and of most consideration, gravitate to and group themselves, especially since 1830, around this last permanent center and form a part of its body; he is the sole germinating, vivifying, intact center that still agglutinates scattered wills and suitably organizes them. Naturally, class and party interests incorporate themselves additionally along with the Catholic interest which he represents, and his ecclesiastical authority becomes a political influence; besides his secular and regular clergy, over and beyond the two thousand five hundred exemplary or directorial lives which he controls, we see behind him an indefinite multitude of lay adhesions and devotedness. Consequently, every government must take him into their calculations, and all the more because his colleagues stand by him; the episcopacy, banded together, remains erect in face of the omnipotent State, under the July monarchy as claimants of free instruction and under the second empire in support of the temporal power of the Pope.—In this militant attitude, the figure of the bishop is fully unveiled; the titular champion of an infallible Church, himself a believer and submissive; his voice is extraordinarily proud and defiant;[5259] in his own eyes, he is the unique depository of truth and morality; in the eyes of his followers, he becomes a superhuman personage, a prophet of salvation or of destruction, the annunciator of divine judgments, the dispenser of celestial anger or of celestial pardon; he rises to the clouds in an apotheosis of glory; with women especially, this veneration grows into enthusiasm and degenerates into idolatry. Towards the end of the second empire an eminent French bishop, on a steamboat on Lake Leman, taking a roll of bread from his pocket, seated himself alongside of two ladies and ate it, handing each of them a piece of it. One of them, bowing reverently, replied to him, "At your hands, my lord, this is almost the holy communion!"[5260]



IV. The subordinate clergy.

The subordinates.—The secular clergy.—Its derivation and how recruited.—How prepared and led.—The lower seminary.— The higher seminary.—Monthly lectures and annual retreat.— The Exercitia.—The Manreze du Pretre.—The cure in his parish.—His role a difficult one.—His patience and correct conduct.

A clergy submissive in mind and feeling, long prepared by its condition and education for faith and obedience, acts under the sway of this sovereign and consecrated hand.[5261] Among the 40,000 cures and desservans "more than 35,000 belong to the laboring class of workmen and peasants,"[5262] not the first class of peasants, but the second class, the poorer families earning their daily bread and often with a good many children. Under the pressure of the ambient atmosphere and of the modern regime, the others keep back their sons, retaining them for the world and denying them to the Church; ambition, even low down on the scale, has developed itself and changed its object. No longer do they aspire for their sons to become a cure but a school master, a railroad employee, or a commercial clerk.[5263] It was necessary to go descend further, a lower stratum has to be attained, in order to extract from it the priests that are lacking.